


Deathblimp, missing scene

by TeaandBanjo



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 20:06:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11997018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaandBanjo/pseuds/TeaandBanjo
Summary: Phryne Fisher and Jack Robinson are passengers on the R101 airship, bound for England.  Right now they are somewhere over southern France, investigating a murder, two missing passengers, and some irregularities in test doccumentation.Read Inzannatea's "The Most Common Element."  This chapter fits in between 9 and 10.Jack meets Miss Cortland again.  They are not properly introduced.





	Deathblimp, missing scene

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Inzannatea (Zanna23)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zanna23/gifts).



Jack watched Phryne climb down the ladder to the damaged Bulldog,  with the light silk of her blouse and trousers whipping in the wind like an angel on cocaine.  Her dark hair was trying to lift off in its own, but her hands gripped the ladder tightly.

He could feel the chill dampness of the R101s slipstream cutting through his own jacket and his trousers flapping around his ankles.  The engines hummed as they pulled the bulky shape of the R101 through the air.

Just then, he notice the telltale twinges of an old wound and changing weather. Clouds were gathering, the small cheerful cumulus clouds were beginning to gain height and electrical energy.  Maybe the R101 and its passengers would be somewhere else by the time the thunder started.

Why weren't all those years since the War enough to heal the damage from German ordinance?  He mentally scolded himself.  He was flying at 2000 feet over the French countryside, watching the patchwork of farm and field and forest unrolling like a map across a table.  So much better off than all the poor diggers  who ended up under it.

Jack glaced down the ladder.  Phryne was already in the biplane's cockpit, obscured by the upper wing.  He hoped she could finish her search quickly, but if there were anything truly interesting that was unlikely.

He turned away from the ladder, pacing the length of the catwalk that led back into interior the zepplin.  Metal uprights suspended the deck from the framework without slowing the wind in any way.  Wire cables at waist level pretended to be handrails.  Jack tapped each upright nervously as he paced back towards the steps that led up and though the silver-painted cloth skin of the R101.  His attention was focused on a question of his own.  What were his odds of avoiding a visible limp tomorrow?  

Movement in the dim interior caught his attention.  The person was female, her shoes ringing against the metal stairs.  

Her posture and movement rang alarms in Jack's brain.  She faced him, her right arm was straight and rising, clenched fist pointing towards him.

He was halfway to flat on the metal grating before he really thought "gun," and the crack of the shot wasn't a suprise, although the way the catwalk bent and shifted under his weight as he hit was.  "No damn cover," he heard himself mutter.

Her shoes rang on the next two steps down, and Jack threw himself sideways as a second shot ricocheted off the catwalk.  Something rigid slammed into his head, and his vision clouded.   Even more disturbing, he could now feel the edge of the metal deck under his shoulder, and his right arm out in empty air.  "Fuck, Robbo, Don't make this worse."  He wished intensely for the floating colored shapes to evaporate, and even more intensely for a way to fight back.  Metal uprights at knee, hip, and head level kept him with the airship, but he was uncomfortably close to joining the whisps of cloud below.

The woman's steps were now shifting the catwalk, and vibrating in his head as a jazzy counterpoint to the throbbing pain and the drone of the airship's engines.  He mentally measured the distance from the sound of her feet to where he lay, and did his level best to be still like the dead.  After all, if she had already killed him there was no need for more shooting, right?

She seemed unsure,  her steps slowing as she approached.  Jack realized he could hear the sound of her dress rippling in the wind, the creak of the airplane against its moorings, and the slow flap of the zepplin's covering shifting against the metal frame.  His eyes were closed, but he knew exactly where she was.  

Just out of reach. Damn it.

She took one step closer.

Jack rolled fully onto the decking, hooked a foot behind her knees and brought her down.  He opened his eyes to Ann Cortland falling next to him.  Most of the floating spots had left for wherever they went in between unecessary head injuries.

Years of experience subduing angry drunks came into play, as Jack pushed her face-down on the metal.  He used his weight to keep her on the deck, body crossways to hers.  The French countryside slid by slowly, visible through the mesh of the catwalk.  

She fought back, elbows and heels, and some screaming.  He wrapped a hand around her left wrist, and folded her arm to bring it to the center of her back.  Some vague regret about not having any handcuffs closer than Melbourne crossed his mind. 

Jack reached past her right shoulder.  She still held the pistol, and he placed his hand over hers on the grip.  A pull and a firm twist brought the barrel into line with her head, although it was still her finger on the trigger. 

Miss Cortland squeeked and went completely limp under him.

Jack lifted the pistol out of her hand, and took the prescribed and practiced police grip on the weapon.  His finger was on the trigger now.

"Don't give me any trouble," ordered Jack, in a policeman's voice loud enough to cut through the wind noise and the sound of the engines.  

Miss Cortland looked over her shoulder with an expression of complete terror.

Jack shifted his weight off the woman and on to his knees, keeping her hand pinned to her back until the last moment.  

She sensed her opportunity, and scooted away to the opposite railing, where she sat, glaring at Jack and the gun and hugging her wrist to her chest.

"You're no gentleman!"

"It's not a job requirement, Miss Cortland."  He took a deep breath, and tried to get some of the anger and adrenaline to find someplace else to go.  "I take it a gentleman is supposed to let himself be shot?"

He observed that Miss Cortland had the wits not argue the point with the increasingly cranky policeman who was aiming a pistol at her.  

Miss Fisher's hurried steps sounded on the catwalk.

"Jack!  You found her," Phryne purred.  Jack schooled his mouth to stay still, but inside his head he was smiling.

"Other way around," he replied without turning his head.  "She was coming down here for something."

"Air Commodore Cobb is in the Bulldog.  Tied up."  Her voice was 2 feet from his elbow.  Hugging her and lifting her off her feet needed to wait until someone else took charge of Miss Cortland.

Jack kept the Walther aimed at Miss Cortland as Thompson and several of the airship's crewmen arrived.  Miss Fisher explained the situation to the men quickly, precisely, and without crossing Jack's line of fire.

When two of them hauled Miss Cortland to her feet and escorted her back into the R101, he flipped the safety on the Walther and watched three more men bring up Cobb from the biplane.  Flight Cadet Goff took up a position next to Jack, for some reason. The wind, occasional raindrops, and the cold metal of the deck conspired to convince Jack that his arse was being turned into an ice sculpture.

Miss Fisher eyed him suspiciously.  "Jack, you're bleeding."

He lifted a hand to the side of his head, brushed fingers across to the hairline.  Wet.  

"Oh fuck."  He examined his hand.  It wasn't really a lot of blood, but his head hurt, and Jack suddenly felt too tired to think.  "I'm getting too old for this shit."

"Flight Cadet Goff," chirped Phryne. "Where would we find medical supplies, bandages, things like that?"

"I will take you there, Miss Fisher."

"Take care of the Inspector," ordered Phryne.  "I need to report to the Air Commodore."

Jack unloaded the Walther, and surrendered the ammo and the pistol to Cadet Goff, who seemed surprised, but managed to accept it correctly without pointing the barrel at either Jack or Phryne.  

Jack looked up from where he sat to see that both Mr. Goff and Miss Fisher were offering him a hand to help him up.  The words that filled his mind were only partially in German, but they were all rude.  He settled for casually waving them off.  Goff stepped back, but Phryne didn't seem to be convinced. 

Her hand was still out as he struggled painfully to his feet, and her eyes didn't leave his as waited for just a moment for bones and joints and muscles to get used to the idea that he was supposed to be standing up now.  Jack nodded to her, and got a small smile in return.

"Ready?" asked Goff.

Phryne took his arm.  Her hands were cold, she obviously was just trying to get warm, not trying to make sure he made it up the steps.  Keep telling yourself that, Robbo.

At the top of the steps, she pulled herself closer and purred in his ear, "We have unfinished business.  In our cabin. Once I deliver our report."

"What about the Roumanians?"  he whispered back.

"I'm pretty sure you are more fun." 

**Author's Note:**

> Americans sometimes use the phrase "playing possum," because the opossum that lives in North Amerca will play dead to avoid the attention of predators.
> 
> Does the Australian possum do this?  Do Aussies use the phrase?


End file.
